POWER FROM THE STREETS!

Archive for July, 2007

Since the protest encampment April 21st through to May 2, 2007, which emerged to expose violations of houseless peoples’ rights and to generate support for a campground, PEOPLE PROJECT has continued Tuesday night meetings and hosted a number of other dignified spaces.

*In the month of June, PEOPLE PROJECT hosted two Grub-n-Grab‘s in Eureka, CA. A grub-n-grab is a sharing space, open to all, where everything is ‘free’! All day, folks are welcome to come and eat and make theirs some clothes, jackets, kitchen stuff, sleeping bags, tarps, etc. The first Grub-n-Grab featured lots of baby clothes; the second, lots of outdoor sleeping gear. People Project creates and encourages spaces and activities where we can re-imagine and experience what community looks and feels like –where we value dignity, health, and respect for all, with value having nothing to do with money….

* Also in June, a few active PEOPLE PROJECT folks attended and camped (and volunteered) at this year’s North Coast Veterans’ Stand Down. PEOPLE PROJECT set up a table next to Veterans for Peace (who were tabling regarding Depleted Uranium) and gave out silk-screened shirts and patches, and fliers inviting vets to meetings/events. As the Arcata Reporter puts so succinctly:

“…There was a lot of free services, food and music for veterans and their families. Army surplus gear was given away to homeless vets. According to the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, one out of every three homeless adult males is a veteran and on any given night, more than 500,000 veterans are homeless. ”

*PEOPLE PROJECT has been popping up on street corners with Kiosks. We set up the kiosks to inspire and to share, through various media mediums (video, audio, photos, conversation), information and perspectives about PEOPLE PROJECT direct actions- from participants and supporters. At the kiosks, we also share food, coffee, tea, and PEOPLE PROJECT shirts, patches, and CD’s. Recently, folks visiting the kiosk watched encampment footage and participant interviews on a t.v. powered by a bicycle generator!

*PEOPLE PROJECT, in coordination with folks from the Art As Resistance collective, Accion Zapatista de Humboldt, and others used roving guerrilla theatre, signs, flyers, and loud voices to get the attention of hundreds of attendees at Arcata’s yearly oyster fest. During the week leading up to the ‘fest’, PEOPLE PROJECT discussed the city’s “preparation” for such business-run events, which can include tactics to get houseless people out of town or out of sight. That same week, 100’s of ‘undocumented’ people (in Humboldt) were taken away from their families and friends in massive deportation sweeps. These sweeps went on all over the U.S. We will not be silent when any of us are targeted, detained, taken away.

*PEOPLE PROJECT Direct Action Documentation Project: People Project is working to collectively document perspectives of participants and supporters of the People Project encampment (of April 21st to May 2nd 2007). This perspective is being focused on to reveal and distribute the ideas of those who engage in direct action through creating audio and video recorded interviews, a video documentary, a timeline of struggle, pamphlets, and zine(s).

The purpose of a video or any other type of interpretation will be to represent the different relations of force that People Project direct actions call attention to through the voices of participants and supporters. Part of this will be to expose the history of discriminatory actions taken against houseless people in HumboldtCounty generally and specifically in Arcata…. read more about the documentation project

PEOPLE PROJECT will continue to convene meetings and direct action spaces. Folks willing to help prepare or participate in other beneficial ways are wholeheartedly welcomed!